Company

CLC plant in Hanover sets new benchmarks

The new CLC plant is the only production facility worldwide that unites tyre recycling and retreading under one roof thus setting new benchmarks in sustainability.

Breathing life into tyres a second and even a third time is the basic idea behind the ContiLifeCycle approach (CLC). What has worked with glass and metals for decades is now also possible for premium truck tyres, with the world’s first fully integrated recycling and retreading plant in Hannover-Stöcken.

“We had a vision when we drew up the LifeCycle strategy for commercial vehicle tyres in 2010,” says Christian Sass, who is in charge of the Truck and Bus Tyres Retreading business for the European region, Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

“Just three years later, our vision has turned into reality,” Sass enthuses about the ultramodern, bright, and open production facility, the only one of its kind in the world, where groups of visitors can be received – the ContiLifeCycle plant. Within a time frame of just 15 months, the first fully integrated recycling and retreading plant was built in the former truck tyre production facility in Hannover-Stöcken.

What makes the plant unique is the combination of closing the production cycle and utilising the synergies from retreading and rubber recycling, thereby setting new standards in terms of sustainability. Using a novel and proprietary process, we have succeeded in recycling rubber from used tyres in such a way that the raw material will be directly returned into the production cycle for new or retreaded tyres.

In the past, used tyres were processed into technically inferior products, such as floor mats or were simply incinerated. “Thanks to our special recycling method, it is possible to re-supply the valuable rubber to its original purpose in an efficient way.